SpaceX to lay off 10 per­cent of work­force

SpaceX will lay off 10 per­cent of its roughly 6,000 work­ers, say­ing it needs to be­come leaner to ac­com­plish am­bi­tious projects such as cre­at­ing a space­ship to carry as­tro­nauts to Mars.

The lay­offs were an­nounced to work­ers Fri­day in an email from Pres­i­dent Gwynne Shotwell, the Los An­ge­les Times re­ported. The email said laid-off em­ploy­ees will be of­fered at least eight weeks’ pay and other ben­e­fits.

Elon Musk’s com­pany was re­cently val­ued at nearly $30 bil­lion. It has a lu­cra­tive busi­ness sup­ply­ing the In­ter­na­tional Space Sta­tion and putting satel­lites into or­bit.